Received from Stuart Campbell, Assistant Director – Performance and Intelligence, Hertfordshire County Council:

I am writing to update your Parish Council on the work that is being undertaken to make improvements to the county’s broadband network and to highlight how you may be able to help us in the near future to achieve our goals for the people of Hertfordshire.

We have been allocated £1.1M by Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) to help address those premises currently receiving inadequate broadband services. Hertfordshire County Council and/or the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) will be expected to match fund this figure before procuring a commercial supplier who would themselves match the BDUK and local authority/LEP contribution.

We will need your help very soon. This is because we will need to work together to get Hertfordshire to the front of the “BDUK pipeline”. This is how BDUK will control the flow of projects that go to the market and it will open in May 2012. We are aiming to get to the front of this queue but competition is strong. Therefore, we will be doing everything we can to present a case for Hertfordshire.

The Parish Council obviously support this initiative, and we have responded to earlier consultations. We will continue to press for improvements, and would be very interested to hear from residents and local businesses if broadband services have not been satisfactory. Please add your comments to this post, and we will be able to take them into account as this initiative proceeds.